It is often desirable to connect work pieces, such as wood, together to form furniture, picture frames, door frames, and the like. Nails, screws, and rope are three methods of connecting work pieces together. However, all three are visible to the naked eye, and hence, are often considered to be aesthetically displeasing. It is even more difficult to connect these work pieces together at corners or face frames where angles are formed. The Most common angles incurred is the right angle or miter joint.
A method of securing such pieces internally is the use of dowels. This is accomplished by drilling corresponding pilot holes of equal size in each of the work pieces, inserting dowels into such holes, and joining the two work pieces together. An adhesive material is often placed in and/or around the dowels and/or on the surface area of each work piece where the same contact each other.
One problem often incurred in the use of dowels is properly spacing the pilot holes with respect to each other and with respect to each work piece. One method of properly spacing the pilot holes is to temporarily locate the same by tapping brads at the dowel positions in the miter face of one work piece, cutting the brads off short and making their impressions on the other face by pressing the two work pieces together, and upon removal of the brads the positions are marked. However, careful drilling is still required to obtain accurate pilot hole positions.
Another problem is properly aligning the two work pieces such that at least one side of the finished product is flush. the difficulty here arises from the fact that the work pieces are typically wood and wood is a substance that does not lend itself to symmetry.
One known device used in drilling pilot holes is a vice-like jig that can be placed over a piece of lumber such that two flaps of the jig extend around the lumber, a centered screw perpendicular to the lumber is used to secure the jig to and about the lumber. the jig has centrally placed guide holes or dies to permit the drilling of the pilot holes. Such holes are automatically centered with respect to the two sides touching the jig, but do not take into account the desire to have surfaces which are flush with one another even though the width of the two pieces of wood being drilled is slightly different.
The doweling of face frames and other work pieces is often done in connection with the assembling of furniture such as desks, book cases, etc. It is often desirable to provide ship shelving for the furniture. Four lines of shelving peg holes are drilled and arranged vertically on the side walls of such furniture. It is difficult to properly align such shelving peg holes with respect to (1) the side walls of the furniture, (2) the other shelving peg holes within that particular row, and (3) the corresponding shelving peg holes located, or to be located, on the other three rows.
Large vices, rulers, T squares, and other instruments of measure and apparatus to hold work pieces have been used in the drilling of pilot holes and the doweling of work pieces. Such apparatus are often large, such as vices which are essentially work-shop bound, or difficult to use, or imprecise in measuring the distances between the pilot holes or the distance the holes are placed from any one of the particular sides of the work piece.
Therefore, it is a feature of the present invention to provide a light weight, portable face frame dowel apparatus.
It is another feature of the present invention to provide an improved face frame dowel apparatus which is useful in the process of connecting work pieces by means of dowels and providing flush alignment of such work pieces on at least one side.
It is yet another feature of the present invention to provide an easily adjustable face frame dowel apparatus capable of receiving work pieces of various widths for the purpose of drilling pilot holes in such work pieces for the receipt of dowels.
It is yet another feature of the present invention to provide a face frame dowel apparatus which is also useful in drilling guide holes in furniture, such as bookcases, capable of receiving slip boards for shelving.